"Article six," he said. "Section three, paragraph D."
"No-o-o-o!" she screamed.
Grinning, he shoved her legs apart.
And a crimson blotch exploded on his chest.
His eyes widened, and he straightened up, twisting around as he tried to clutch at his back, making a sickening gurgling noise deep in his throat. He'd dropped his coat hanger, but he made no attempt to retrieve it. Instead, he lurched to the side as a high, keening whine escaped from his mouth.
Liz stood behind him. She pulled out the knife she'd plunged into his back and shoved it in again, higher. No blood bloomed on his shirt this time, but Maureen could see it spraying behind him, coating Liz's arms, soaking the dresser and carpet. He fell on the bed next to her, jerking spasmodically. Maureen pushed herself over the foot of the bed, rolling onto the floor, and when she looked up again he was still.
Liz remained in place, covered with blood, hands at her side. "I'm sorry," she said, and she started to cry. "It's my fault. I'm sorry."
Maureen stood and hugged her friend.
"I was weak. I couldn't help it. I went to them." By now she was sobbing. "I just wanted it to stop."
Maureen looked at the body on the bed, Liz's knife still protruding from the back of his suit jacket.
"I didn't tell them," Liz said, wiping her eyes and smearing the blood on her face. "Honest. You have to believe me. I knew they knew, but I wasn't the one who told them."
The knowledge filled Maureen with relief. "I believe you."
"I should've done something, though. I should've ..." She trailed off, then took a deep breath. "I knew they'd send someone, and I
waited outside your house and followed him in when he showed up."
"Thank God you did." Maureen could not seem to take her eyes off the would-be abortionist's body. "But they'll be after both of us now."
"Not me," Liz said. "I went to them."
Maureen knew that was supposed to mean something to her, knew she was supposed to understand its implications, but she did not.
Liz seemed to straighten, to find some untapped reserve of strength within her. "But they'll be doubly anxious to get to you now. You'd better get out of here. Where's Barry?"
"At his sister's in Pennsylvania."
"Then go to a hotel somewhere, in some other town." She held up a hand. "Don't tell me where."
"But..." Maureen gestured toward the body. "... but you killed him.
And he's one of theirs. They won't let you get away with that."
"Don't worry about it."
"I can't just leave you."
"Get out of here," Liz ordered.
"But--"
"I'll take care of this. Just grab what you need and go. Now."
The Bonita Vista Homeowners' Association Covenants, Conditions, and Restrictions Article VI, Membership Rights, Section 8, Paragraph G:
A homeowner may justifiably use deadly force on any of the Properties whenever he or she deems it appropriate.
Maureen called him from a hotel in Cedar City.
Barry had just come back to his sister's house from the hospital and was bone tired, but he was wide awake as Maureen described the attack on her and Liz's last-minute rescue. At the old woman's behest, she'd packed what she thought she'd need into the Toyota and took off, ending up in Cedar City at dawn. She'd been trying to get a hold of him ever since, calling every five minutes for the last hour.
"They were trying to stop us from having a baby," she whispered, and the words sent a shiver down his spine. "They were trying to abort it."
There was nothing more he could do for Sheri--and Brian had his own sister, Margot, and her family there for support--so Barry caught the next plane west, an AA flight to St. Louis. He waited only an hour at the St. Louis terminal for a standby coach seat on a plane flying to Salt Lake City, and by late afternoon, Utah time, he and Maureen were hugging in her room at the Holiday Inn.
She told him again what happened, this time in more detail. After she finished, he tried to call Liz, but twenty rings later there was no answer and he finally hung up. He made a quick call to Brian at the hospital in Philadelphia to see if Sheri's condition had improved--it was unchanged then turned toward Maureen, sitting next to him on the bed.
"We'll both stay here tonight," he said. "But tomorrow I'm going back home. I want you to stay here for a few days while I... straighten things out."
"No!" she said, clutching his arm. "Don't go back there! We're through with that place. Just sell it, sell the house, sell everything."
"We can't, remember? There's a lien."
"Fuck it. Write it off then. We'll survive. We'll find a little tract home. We'll rent an apartment if we have to."
"Like you said, it would follow us around. We can't just walk away and pretend it didn't happen. There's a record. It'd be financial suicide--"
"Don't give me that. Since when have you given a damn about finances?"
He met her eyes. "You're right," he said. "I just... can't let them win. I can't do it. I can't walk away from this."
She squinted suspiciously. "What did you mean, 'straighten things out'?"
"I don't expect you to understand--"
"Oh, it's a guy thing, huh?"
"No, not that."
"A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do?"
He grabbed her shoulders, held them tight. "Someone has to take a stand." She pulled away from him, stood. "What does that mean? What does any of this mean? You're talking like someone in a bad western movie. They tried to abort our baby!"
"That's why I'm going back."
"Goddamn it, Barry!"
"I'm going back."
"I won't let you!"
"You have no choice." He looked at her. "/ have no choice."
* * *
By the time he reached Bonita Vista it was nearly noon. At the gate, the guard smirked at him, forced him to show his driver's license, and took an inordinately long time looking up his name on the list of residents. Finally, his admission approved, the gate swung open. Barry threw the melted ice from his Subway cup out the window and into the face of the guard as he drove past. "Asshole!" he said.
He stepped on the gas and sped up the hill.
Their home had been desecrated. The property had been re landscaped yet again, this time with a rolling green lawn that defied the natural aesthetics of the hillside and looked as though it had been transplanted from a golf course. One lone tree remained, but all shrubs and bushes were gone, the irregular ground smoothed over and planted with bright green grass.
The house looked like something out of Dr. Seuss.
Their shingled roof had been redecorated with black and white zigzag stripes. The side of the house facing the street was bright yellow, the upstairs window red, the two bottom windows blue. The door was not only pink but had been padded with some sort of fuzzy material.
Inside, much of the furniture had been removed and the walls were blank, all of Maureen's artwork and groupings taken down. There was only one couch, the coffee table, and his stereo system in the living room; only the bed, dresser, and television set in the still-bloodstained bedroom. He had no idea where the rest of their stuff had gone, but he had the feeling that it was not safely packed away in storage.
The mailbox was crammed with dozens of fines and notices from the homeowners' association.
First things first. He walked back into the house, got a book of matches from the junk drawer in the kitchen, and strode down to the end of the driveway, where he very oh Obviously and dramatically dumped everything out of the mailbox onto the asphalt. He lit a match, touched it to the corner of one envelope, then to the corner of a pink form. In seconds, the entire pile of papers was burning.
As he'd suspected, as he'd hoped, Neil Campbell appeared from up the street, walking briskly, clipboard in hand. The prissy little man looked positively apoplectic. "You can't do that!" he shouted, turning in at die driveway.